This invention relates to an improved wheel mounting and final drive for a vehicle, and more particularly to a wheel mounting and final drive having particular utility on a relatively large agricultural or industrial machine, such as a combine or the like.
Such machines have relatively large drive wheels that are driven at a relatively low rotational speed, speed reducing final drives conventionally being provided at the outer end of a rigid axle structure for connecting a wheel drive shaft to the wheel. In such machines, each drive wheel is conventionally mounted on an axle or shaft that extends outwardly from the final drive housing and is journaled therein by a pair of axially spaced wheel bearings mounted in the final drive housing. It is also known to mount a drive wheel on a rigid axle spindle by means of a pair of axially offset bearings between the wheel and the spindle.